


Élan

by quiettoxic



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gymnastics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 21:54:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiettoxic/pseuds/quiettoxic
Summary: The gymnast and the choir leader have to share the same practice hall. Neither of them are very happy about this, but a bet made between them may have an unexpected outcome.





	Élan

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive and bear estbela! Because it was mentioned once and I Had to write something :')
> 
> Read it on [tumblr](http://quiettoxic.tumblr.com/post/175584034438/did-anyone-say-estbela-heres-some-estbela-%C3%A9lan) if you want to. (I have,, a new blog but the url is the same)
> 
> Eduard is Estonia, Nadzeya is Belarus, Iryna is Ukraine, Vinh is Vietnam, Angélique is Seychelles and Olympe is Monaco

“Miss Alyakhnovich.”

Nadzeya closes her eyes and breathes out through her nose. In a fluid movement, she kicks out of her bridge stretch, flipping her legs over her head and landing on her feet.

“Mr Mets.”

There he stands at the edge of the mat; Eduard Mets, looking as unbelievably out of place as always in his buttoned blue shirt, his hands clasped behind his back. The shirt  _should_  stretch over his chest but doesn’t, because this fucking grown man apparently has no idea what size his clothes need to be. Behind his glasses, light eyes are narrowed.

“I need the space,” he says. “As you are well aware.”

Nadzeya stretches her arms over her head.

“So it seems,” she drawls. She can hear the chatter of people outside the door of the hall. “How are the acoustics in the corridor?”

“I know you’re just being contrary for the fun of it, Alyakhnovich,” Mets says. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Your time slot is five to seven. It’s past seven.”

“Oh, is it? I hadn’t noticed.” She pulls her hair free of its bun and shakes it messily over her shoulders, working her fingers through the tangles. Mets closes his eyes in obvious exasperation, and Nadzeya hides her pleased smirk by pulling her hair across her face. It’s too easy, really, to pick on Mets.

“I’m calling everyone in,” he finally says. “See what you do.”

Nadzeya raises her eyebrows, but Mets doesn’t see it, because he is actually walking to the double doors leading to the corridor and tugging them open, allowing the members of his choir to enter the hall. Some glance at her curiously, not used to seeing her still in; Mets usually waits until she’s at least on her way to the changing room to open the door. She wonders idly if the choir has anything coming up. A championship like her gymnasts do.

“Hi, Nadzeya!” someone calls, and Nadzeya holds a hand up at her older sister Iryna, who is a fucking traitor and sings in Mets’s choir.

To be fair, she’s a very good singer. Always has been, even when Nadzeya was the one who fronted a band back in school.

Turning to leave the hall, she snickers as she remembers how goddamn awful they were.

“Alyakhnovich!” Mets calls behind her.

She turns back, a hand on her hip and her head tilted back so she can look down her nose at the man. It’s difficult because he’s far too tall, must be nearly as tall as Nadzeya’s towering man of a brother.

“Yeah?”

“Are you just going to leave your stuff lying around?” He gestures at the mat. With a sigh and a sneer, Nadzeya leans up to him, putting them too close together, but Mets doesn’t back up in the slightest.

Huh. He’s usually easier to intimidate. Now, his sea-green eyes are hard, gaze steady on her.

“I’m sure the little elves will take care of it,” she says, pitching her voice just a little too high, and turns, expecting that to be the end of it.

“Alyakhnovich, for god’s sake,” Mets says. He has raised his voice slightly, which Nadzeya has never heard him do before and must be equivalent to shouting in his world.

Alright, that warrants her attention.

She turns to him expectantly. The members of the choir are silent, undoubtedly watching. Nadzeya is focused on Mets.

“I don’t have time for—we have a performance coming up very soon,” Mets explains. Some choir members make affirmative noises. “We need the time.”

“My girls have a national championship coming up,” Nadzeya counters. “It’s my first as a coach. I can’t fuck it up by cutting my time short to clean up for your choir, Mets.”

“Well,  _I_  can’t fuck up either, Alyakhnovich.” His eyes flash unexpectedly when he swears, which Nadzeya hasn’t ever heard him do before either. There’s apparently more fire in the guy than she’s been giving him credit for.

“Is it a competition, your performance?” she asks, because an idea is floating to the forefront of her mind that she just can’t resist throwing at Mets. And, when he nods, “I say we make a wager of it.”

Several choir members make interested noises. Mets turns to them.

“Please do some warm-ups!”

Seconds later, the air is filled with the disjointed sound of thirty-ish people making strange noises and singing tone ladders, and Mets focuses on Nadzeya again.

“What kind of wager?”

“You’ll clean up if one of my girls wins, I will if your choir does.”

He considers it, pushing his glasses down and then back up.

“What if we both win, or both lose?”

‘We’ll make a schedule, Mets.” She wants to make a sneer about how she will definitely win, but decides that would be putting even more pressure on her gymnasts. “Are you in or are you out?”

He just  _looks_  for a few more seconds, before nodding with a curiously shrewd look in his eyes and holding his right hand out. He’s wearing a silver band on his middle finger. Nadzeya smirks and grasps his hand, taking care to squeeze just a little bit too tightly. He winces.

“That’s a deal,” he says. “The performance is on Friday in five weeks.”

“So is the national championship.” Nadzeya tugs on his hand until he stumbles into her space. “Good luck, Mr Mets.”

As she turns and walks to the door, she hears him mumble, “Best of luck to you too, Miss Alyakhnovich.”

He seems to forget about the mat still out in the hall, at least until Nadzeya is well and gone and he can’t call her back for it anymore.

* * *

Next Thursday—does the choir have another time slot at some point like Nadzeya and her girls have three other times a week?—Mets arrives earlier than usual, almost thirty minutes so.

Nadzeya only spots him when Vinh points him out, and then she wonders how she missed him. He’s awkwardly hanging out by the doors, with his back against the wall and his shoulders hunched as if trying to appear less tall. He’s also dripping wet, his light hair strung over his forehead and his shirt sticking to his chest. She raises her eyebrows at that. Is it raining?

“He looks like a sad puppy,” Vinh says. She doesn’t sound like she’s too broken up about it. Nadzeya huffs.

“Mets,” she calls, taking a few steps in his direction. He glances up at her, and his eyes seem sharper than usual somehow. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs, and Nadzeya paces a few more exasperated steps his way.

“Is it raining or did you forget how the shower worked?”

He gives her a flat look. “It’s raining, Alyakhnovich. I ran all the way from the bus station.”

Pulling his shirt away from his chest, he shivers, and a drop of rain from his hair slides on to his glasses.

There are soft footsteps behind Nadzeya, and then there’s Angélique, one of her gymnasts, sidling up next to her and smiling at Mets.

“Hi, Mr Mets,” she says, cheerful as always. She’s good, the youngest in her team, but sometimes gives Nadzeya honest-to-god headaches.

“Hello Angélique,” he replies, tone almost indulgent. Nadzeya has no idea how he knows her name.

“You look cold; do you want to borrow a towel?”

He shakes his head, the fucking idiot.

“Do you  _want_  to get sick, Mets?” Nadzeya asks snidely. “I guess it’s a good way to lose the bet.”

“What bet?” Angélique asks. She looks between them with curiosity, tugging at a stray curl escaping from the bun in her hair.

Nadzeya decides it’s better to deflect that one. Again, she doesn’t need to put any more pressure on the girls.

“Do you two know each other?” she asks, aiming the question at Mets, but it’s Angélique who replies.

“He’s my teacher.”

“Was,” he corrects.

“The choir?” Nadzeya didn’t know Angélique could sing.

Mets shakes his head. “I teach at a high school. IT and music. Only the lower years, though, so Angélique doesn’t have classes with me anymore.”

Nadzeya stares at him, then turns to Angélique to tell her to go back to her practice. When she returns to Mets, he’s wringing his hands into his shirt. Rain water drips from it, splashes on his sneakers and on the floor of the hall.

“Alright, I’m getting a fucking towel for you,” she snaps, unable to stand it.

He trails after her when she marches to a changing room, waiting in the doorway and shivering in the cold air coming in from the corridor. She pushes a scratchy purple towel at his chest, and he smiles faintly as he takes it, running it through his hair, messing it up completely. He looks very odd without the blond strands covering his forehead, but Nadzeya quickly walks back to the hall so she doesn’t have to look at it.

Mets follows her.

“Thanks,” he says, gently dabbing his face. Nadzeya just huffs.

“Why are you here?” she asks again.

“My class let out earlier. It does more often. I usually wait outside the doors, but, well…” He gestures at his wet shirt. “It’s freezing out there.”

He’s right; it’s long since turned spring, but they have hit a cold spell, and the corridor doesn’t seem to have any isolation whatsoever. She shakes her head.

“Of course you’re a fucking teacher, I should have known.” And, when he raises his eyebrows, “You nerd.”

He doesn’t reply to that, just continues toweling himself off, so Nadzeya goes back to her gymnasts. When she glances at Mets, he’s combing his fingers through his hair, flattening it back into its ridiculous bowl cut, but his gaze is on her. She rolls her eyes and doesn’t look again, but can feel him watching her all the same.

* * *

A week later, thirty minutes before the end of her time slot, Nadzeya has to wonder whether Mets is out in the cold corridor, and then she absolutely needs to look.

He isn’t, and Angélique smirks at her in a way that makes her extremely wary of what the girl is thinking, so Nadzeya scowls at her until she resumes practicing and ignores the unimpressed arch of Vinh’s eyebrow altogether.

Mets comes in at the normal time, the gymnasts having gone to get changed and Nadzeya pushing the rolled-up mat on its cart into the storage. He greets her pleasantly enough, the tiniest smile tugging at his mouth, but Nadzeya is feeling out of sorts and rolls her eyes at him. It visually takes him aback, but he doesn’t seem to see it as a sign that he should leave her alone. He does tend to do that. Nadzeya hates people like that. Hates empty pleasantries and useless words.

“Are the preparations going well?” he asks, walking casually towards her, hands clasped behind his back. Knowing he’s a teacher—and an  _IT_  teacher, of all things—his terrible dress sense makes that much more sense. Nadzeya has never met a single teacher with actual style. This includes her sister, unfortunately.

“Very well.” She snaps the edge of her shorts against her thigh. “It would be much better if we didn’t have to stop so damn early, of course.”

“Hm, of course.”

Their gazes lock, and that fire is again in the man’s eyes. Nadzeya would be lying if she said it doesn’t make something anticipatory curl in her chest. All but forgetting her sour mood, she strides towards him and stands on her tiptoes to lean into his space. He blinks but doesn’t budge. Surrounding him is the smell of something sweet, like fresh bread.

It’s Nadzeya’s turn to blink.

“I’d like to get on with my choir practice,” Mets says, still in that same pleasant tone.

“I bet you do,” is all she can think to say.

“Hmm.” He smiles, turns, and opens the double doors.

Nadzeya will have to ask Iryna if he’s always like this, if she just missed his confident, almost sly, side behind the nerdiness all this time. They’re having dinner with their brother next week; she’ll have to remember.

* * *

The dinner they have is, in fact, planned after Iryna finishes with the choir at half past eight.

This means that Nadzeya, who lives too far away to be able to get there and back in time, has to hang around while the choir practices. She’s heard her sister sing before, but she has never heard the whole group.

She has certainly never seen Mets hold himself with as much confidence as he does when he conducts them.

Nadzeya sits on the pommel horse in the shadows of the storage, having taken a shower and changed into clothes appropriate for dinner, swinging her legs, and watching.

Painfully awkward Eduard Mets suddenly holds himself with something that could almost be called grace, his movements controlled but fluid and his eyes blazing. The choir cycles through several songs, including one or two Nadzeya actually likes herself and that she would never expect a choir to sing—her taste verges towards metal very often. It works well, to her surprise.

So the answer is  _yes_ , Nadzeya muses, Mets  _is_  always like that as far Iryna would know. Confident and passionate, and not some awkward high school teacher who happens to lead a choir in his spare time. Nadzeya just hasn’t seen it before.

He is also an excellent singer, she finds out. She doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Of course he is.

When the practice ends, Mets is abruptly back to not knowing where to put his hands, and it irks Nadzeya now more than before. She picks her heels up and stalks over to him, glancing briefly at Iryna, who is waiting by the door. Mets looks surprised to see her, as if he’s forgotten she stayed—and both she and Iryna told him.

“Miss Alyakhnovich,” he says, as usual.

She has no idea what she wants to say. Mets’s hair is mussed and his usually pale cheeks are reddened, and it’s all very strange.

“Odd choice of music for a choir,” she tells him in the end.

“We can do more than just classical hymns or whatever you were imagining, Alyakhnovich,” he replies, seemingly offended. He runs his fingers through his hair to smooth it down again, and Nadzeya wants nothing more than to know what this man looks like properly disheveled.

“I had a band back in school that played one of those songs regularly, you know.”

“Really?” He quirks a lopsided smile. “What was your role?”

She makes to bite her lip before remembering her lipstick, and then just presses her lips together.

“I sang.”

“You sang?” His eyes widen. “It runs in the family then?”

“I wouldn’t call it that. I was so fucking bad.”

A spark in his eyes, not fire yet but the suggestion of it. It confuses Nadzeya. She doesn’t like it when people break out of the box she’s constructed for them in her mind, and that’s exactly what Mets has been doing, these past weeks.

“I’d like to hear.”

No way, no fucking way she’s going to sing for him. Or  _anyone_. Never again if she can help it.

“Maybe we can add it to the bet,” he muses.

“Absolutely not. I’m not asking you to do any fucking gymnastics either. Besides, what I did was basically screaming.”

“If I did do gymnastics, would you consider it?”

She looks up at him, seriously thinking about it if just for the fact it would be good to have confirmation that Mets is still Mets even with all that fire in him and would undoubtedly be terrible at the simplest of gymnastics, but is saved from actually having to answer by her sister calling that they’re going to be late. She smirks at Mets, pulls her heels on, and leaves.

* * *

Still, as the week wears on, she can’t stop thinking about it.

Not the Eduard-Mets-doing-gymnastics part of it, per se—although it’s certainly funny as all hell to imagine it; Iryna agreed—but the fact that what she thought she knew about the choir leader seems to be wrong.

“So,” she says to Angélique during their Monday afternoon practice, while they do warm-up stretches, “what kind of teacher is Mets?”

She immediately regrets opening her mouth when Angélique gives her a shrewd look—she fucking hates teenage girls sometimes—and asks why she wants to know.

“Never mind, Verlaque,” she snaps, and Angélique only grins.

“You could ask him yourself,” Olympe suddenly speaks up from behind them. When Nadzeya turns to her, she flicks her eyes to the door, and—

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Nadzeya growls, springing to her feet. “Mets! What the fuck are you doing here?”

He holds his hands up in a placating manner as she comes his way.

“I just thought I’d—whoa, Alyakhnovich—”

Unthinkingly, she has grasped the front of his dumb shirt, and he clasps her wrist in surprise.

Nadzeya looks up at him, he looks back, and neither of them moves for too long. Mets’s hand is warm and dry, and his chest moves steadily. He still smells like fucking bread.

“What are you  _doing_  here?” Nadzeya eventually hisses, tugging on his shirt once before letting go. “You’re never here on Mondays.”

“I am, actually, later today.”

She clenches her jaw, and his gaze skitters around the hall before finding her again.

“Alright, I wanted… I’m curious.” He spreads his hands at his sides. “Look, I can leave if you want me to, but I just wanted to know what it was like… What you’re like when you’re not, you know, being annoyed by me.”

“It’s not fucking working, Mets.”

He laughs sheepishly, fumbling with his glasses.

“I can see that.”

From the mat, Angélique calls, “Hi, Mr Mets! Have you come to watch?”

Nadzeya closes her eyes, bites the inside of her cheek and takes a deep breath while Mets makes vague, noncommittal noises.

“Fine, stay,” she bites at him. It’s not as if he’s going to be able to do anything to put them at a disadvantage at the championship in two weeks, anyway.

He, like her last Thursday, slinks off to the shadows of the storage, and Nadzeya is able to forget that he’s there at all quickly and falls back into the familiar rhythm of coaching her small team.

Nadzeya knows she could have done better in her own career as a gymnast, could do better than preparing three young women for a national championship even, but she has no desire to ever put that much pressure on herself again. Sure, everything she did, everything she gave up for the sport has shaped her into the woman she is now—almost thirty and coaching in a small city with two world records to her name—but it hasn’t made her happy.

This does.

She doesn’t want the amateurs, would never have the patience for children, but these three—Vinh, Angélique and Olympe—they’re her future.

Only when the training is over does she remember Mets.

The man unfolds himself from where he was sitting on the ground and steps out of the shadows, and there is an expression on his face Nadzeya doesn’t know. He looks down at her for a long while; she tugs her sweaty hair out of its bun and rakes her fingers through it. She feels oddly small, as if she’s waiting for the judges to give their points.

“You’re different,” Mets eventually says.

“Yeah, no shit, so are you.” She didn’t mean to snap like that, but he seems unfazed.

“I am? When I conduct, or?”

“Yes, of course you fucking are, Mets.” Does he honestly not know? “The way my sister and I think of you varies  _wildly_ , let me tell you.”

“I imagine I think differently of you than your gymnasts, too.” He bites a fingernail, then looks horrified at that and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “It was really great to see, to be honest. You looked—I mean…”

She raises her eyebrows at him, morbidly curious as to how that sentence is supposed to end.

“You looked beautiful,” he stammers, and there is the awkward man she thought she knew. He chews on his lower lip, leaving indents in the dry, pink skin.

“Wow, thanks.”

“I mean that in a… Not that you aren’t a beautiful woman, because you are, but you seemed to be in your element. Seemed  _right_.” He’s definitely blabbering now, and Nadzeya doesn’t like blabbering, so she just looks at him until he trails off.

In a way, she appreciates his words, but  _honestly_.

“It’s my job,” she just says. “And you looked right too, you know. With the choir.”

“It’s my passion,” he says quietly, and it says a lot that Nadzeya doesn’t even think about making fun of him for that.

* * *

On Thursday, they meet again, of course, and Mets smiles in an almost disarming way at Nadzeya. She startles into smiling back, and the curl in her chest is something hot and tight now that she doesn’t want to think about.

“Why do you dress so fucking horrendously?” she asks Mets instead, trying to find her footing. He looks down at his shirt—this one is dark turquoise and matches his eyes—then treats her to an unimpressed stare.

“I like this shirt.”

“Undoubtedly. It looks terrible on you.”

“It matches my eyes! Your sister has said so.”

No one should take clothing advice from Iryna, who dresses like she’s already past forty at just 35. Nadzeya rolls her eyes and reaches for Mets’s shirt. He takes a step back but not another when she follows, allowing her to pull the sides back, and then she realizes what she’s doing and how this is  _definitely_  not finding her footing, this is performing a flip and losing orientation in the middle of it and just knowing that you will never land on your feet.

She doesn’t let go of Mets’s shirt. Watches his chest rise and fall under the fabric for a few seconds that stretch on.

“It’s too big,” she eventually says, and is pleased to note that her voice is no hoarser than it already is of its own.

“It’s the right si—”

“It’s too big, Mets.” She finally looks up at his face, which looks honestly confused. “It’s hard to watch you.”

He blinks. “And would I be easier to watch if my shirt did fit?”

Nadzeya looks down at his chest again, analyzing the undeniable slouch in his posture—he  _would_  be a terrible gymnast—and the surprisingly narrow hips hiding underneath the fabric, a chest that’s not much broader but—and she tugs a little more on the sides of the shirt—has a certain definition to it.

“What are you doing, Nadzeya?” he asks, voice low, and she lets go of him abruptly, willing a cool façade to slide into place as she looks back at his face. His lips are pursed, eyes questioning behind the glasses. His lashes are as pale as his hair, and unexpectedly long.

“I think there’s just no helping it,” she pronounces, and then rushes to the changing room as quick as she can without making it seem like she’s fucking fleeing.

She is, though, she knows this.

For a while, she just sits there in her shorts and her tank top, leaning back against the wall with her legs splayed in front of her. What’s gotten into her?

The choir starts to sing. Mets must think she’s left by now, and she  _should_  leave.

He called her by her first name. She was  _literally_  close enough to him that he felt he had to call her by her first name. She’s never called him by his first name.

“Eduard,” she says, then pushes her hands into her hair and curses under her breath. Why did he have to throw everything? She doesn’t need this—to find the goddamn choir leader of all people attractive, to want to mess up his dumb haircut by tugging on it, see him without his glasses, sprawled underneath her with his eyes dark—she doesn’t need any of that.

But, god, does she want.

Finally, Nadzeya takes a shower and changes into her everyday clothes. She’s lacing up her boots when the door bangs open, and in comes Eduard Mets.

He stops dead in his tracks when he sees her, and her hands still on the laces. Some water drips from the ends of her hair and splashes on her faux-leather pants.

“I’m sorry, I thought you must’ve gone,” he stammers, then gestures at the showers. “I’m just—I just wanted to get some water.”

“Of course.” Nadzeya quickly finishes lacing up her boots and stands while Mets runs the tap by the showers, coming back with a full bottle of water. The top buttons of his shirt are open.

“I’m getting back,” he says, but he doesn’t go back. Some people in the hall are singing, but it doesn’t sound like the whole choir, and it’s just a pop song that’s been on the radio a lot lately. Nadzeya swallows and looks Mets up and down. He’s doing the same to her.

“You look very nice,” he eventually says, “Different.”

“This is just what I look like every day.” Well, she didn’t do her makeup—what’s the point when she’s just gonna go home?—but the pants and the shirt definitely are.

Mets shrugs helplessly, now not seeming to know where to look.

“What the hell,” Nadzeya says, and walks over to him to tug at his shirt again. It’s quickly becoming familiar.

“What are you doing?” he asks, clasping her wrist again.

“I have no fucking clue,” she snaps, looking intently up at him. “Do you, Eduard?”

“No, that’s why I asked.” And, after a small pause in which he swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing in his pale throat, “Nadzeya.”

She clenches her fingers hard in his shirt, distorting the turquoise fabric, but lets go when he seems to be starting to move his hand up her arm.

“See you next Thursday,” she says, and slams the door on her way out.

* * *

Nadzeya feels apprehensive that Thursday, and not only because tomorrow is the national championship.

“He isn’t here yet,” Olympe informs her sharply when she glances at the door again, and Nadzeya firmly tells herself to fucking stop it. And she does, because she’s good at disciplining herself when needs must—she’s more than happy to space out for hours on end during her free time while some documentary plays in the background.

When Mets does arrive—Eduard? are they on a first name basis now?—he immediately walks over to her with long strides. He’s actually wearing a shirt that fits right, and Nadzeya has to take a deep breath when she realizes that. It isn’t that he looks that much better—even if he does, he still has the air of a nerd about him—as much as the fact that he apparently cared about her opinion while they’ve spent the past two years hating each other in some petty way.

“Good, you’re here,” he says, as if she isn’t always. “I wanted to wish you, and, you know, the gymnasts, the best of luck at the championship tomorrow.”

The gymnasts in question are unsubtly lurking by the door to the changing room, Nadzeya knows. On top of that, the chatter of the choir members is unmistakable out in the corridor.

“You too,” she says. And, “I guess it  _is_  easier to look at you this way.”

“Thank you, Nadzeya.” He smiles, showing a hint of teeth, eyes crinkling behind his glasses. Nadzeya spreads her hands forward, pressing both of them to the man’s chest. His heartbeat is erratic. She focuses on her own fingers, the skin that’s even paler than his, the blunt nails polished matte black.

“Eduard,” she says.

He leans towards her, and she looks up. There’s an expression on his face she doesn’t know, something uncertain yet with fire in his eyes. Her own eyes widen. She curls her fingers into the fabric of his white shirt, breathes in the smell of bread.

She leans up. He reaches for her waist while her hands slide to his neck, messing up his collar. To his jaw.

He kisses her with lips that feel just as dry as they look, with hands resting on her back and his glasses bumping against the bridge of her nose. Nadzeya is dimly aware of someone making noise by the door, but right now it seems more important to kiss him back, to push her fingers into his soft hair, step closer to him and catch his bottom lip between her own.

It doesn’t go any further than that, but Nadzeya’s heart beats in her throat when she pulls back, dragging her fingers over his pulse point to feel the rapid thrum of his heartbeat.

“Alright,” she says, her voice definitely hoarser than usual now. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“I, Nadzeya,” he stutters, then takes a deep breath and nods. “Eight?”

“Eight.”

She leaves the hall, and neither of them need to confirm they’re going to meet right here.

* * *

The hall is empty at eight on Friday when Nadzeya walks into it. She sits down cross-legged on the mat on its cart and watches the still room. The lights are still on, but it’s odd to see it so quiet.

A door bangs somewhere, and then he enters the hall as well.  _Eduard_ , she thinks.

He’s grinning, and Nadzeya bites her lip.

“Did you win?” she calls from the shadows. Eduard startles, then turns her way and stalks over with those long legs of his.

“We did.” He glances down at the mat she’s sitting on. She smirks.

“Time to make a schedule, then.”

“Congratulations,” he says. “Did all three of them do well?”

He’s wearing a suit, and Nadzeya weaves his blue striped tie between her fingers, tugging a little until he comes close enough that his knees press against the mat, and he has to lean over a bit. His pupils are huge in the shadows.

“Vinh won on two things, Olympe and Angélique both got second places once.”

“Very good.” He smiles.

Nadzeya un-crosses her legs, letting them splay on either side of Eduard’s knees. Her skirt falls over the mat. The curl of anticipation in her chest is stronger than ever.

“Congratulations to you too,” she says, then tugs on his tie again until he puts his hand flat on the mat on either side of her and kisses her.

It’s not so slow now; it’s the nerves of the day coming out in a clashing of their mouths, Eduard pressing hard against her while she pushes her right hand into his hair, using the other to support herself. She wants to mess him up, to dishevel him.

The noises they make are too loud in the hall, but Nadzeya doesn’t give a fuck; she licks into Eduard’s mouth, breathes in his gasp and arches into him when his right hand runs up her spine. She curls one leg around his knees, making them buckle more.

He pulls away with a wet sound that makes Nadzeya’s legs twitch, and then they both just look, breathing hard.

Eduard is already disheveled—although not anywhere near what Nadzeya wants to see yet—and his pale skin is flushed pink, his lips red and slick. There is, undeniably, fire in his eyes again, and Nadzeya can’t help but smirk at it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she breathes, then reaches up with her left hand as well, holding herself up by his neck when their mouths meet again, using that and her leg around his knees to arch up to him—until his knees seem to give out and he falls over with a yelp, first almost face-first into her cleavage and then to his knees on the ground in front of her.

“Honestly,” she says with a huff, and he smiles lopsidedly, shrugging one shoulder.

He makes no move to get back up, though, instead settling between her legs and looking over the rim of his glasses at Nadzeya. She tilts her head curiously.

When he presses a kiss to her knee, she bites her lip. Long fingers trail over her calves, feathery light touches that have her toes curling and heat pooling in her belly.

“Is this okay?” Eduard asks.

“Great,” she replies, and he smiles disarmingly.

“I’ve always admired your legs, you know.” He lifts her right one up and trails kisses from her ankle to the inside of her knee.

So this is another thing he seems to be quite confident in. Nadzeya is surprised, but not inclined to complain about it at all.

“They’re important to me.” She tries for deadpan and has the feeling she ends up somewhere between breathless and horribly aroused.

“Hm.”

He moves on to her left leg, but his fingers creep up the outside of her right thigh, hitching up her skirt. It’s difficult to repress the urge to clench her legs, especially when Eduard continues with a surety as if she were a song, to run his mouth along the inside of her left thigh. Eventually, she settles for scooting forward the tiniest bit, both her legs hooked over his shoulders, and running her fingers through his hair.

A smile into her skin.

“Do you like my hair?”

“I hate it,” she replies, voice low. “I want to mess it up.”

He looks up at her. “By all means.”

So she runs both her hands through it while he bunches up her skirt ever further, piling the billowy fabric around the top of her thighs.

He’s so  _fucking_  close to where she wants him, but the anticipation of being just shy of it is almost as thrilling. Her breathing is heavy, echoing through the shadowy storage and the empty hall, and Eduard keeps making little noises of concentration whenever she reacts in a particular way, when her legs twitch or when her fingers clench in his hair.

“Fuck,” she breathes, arousal throbbing through her veins.

Eduard lifts his head and smiles at her, his glasses lopsided and his eyes ablaze, and Nadzeya gives his hair a pull, smirking when his eyelids flutter at that—filling it away—and he complies easily.

He keeps his hands on her thighs, presses his mouth to the cotton of her panties and she can’t help the sound that falls from her lips, a breath so heavy it’s practically a moan.

“ _Eduard_ ,” she says, and is rewarded with the man making a strangled noise against her.

His glasses press against her thighs, against the fabric of her skirt as Eduard moves his mouth up and back down over her underwear until she’s panting as if she’s performed a full floor routine, the muscles in her legs clenched.

A door bangs somewhere, and they both lift their heads towards the sound.

“God,  _fuck_ ,” Nadzeya hisses when there’s voices in the corridor. Another door opens and closes, probably a changing room. She presses her fingers against herself, trying to stave off the inevitable itch that comes with being interrupted.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” Eduard says, his voice an odd mix between breathless and terrified.

“Alright, yes. Fucking hell.”

“I live close by,” he says.

“What are we waiting for?”

They exit through the double doors and the thankfully empty corridor, the cool air all the more pronounced Nadzeya’s legs, some parts of which are definitely slick. She shivers as they arrive in the parking lot.

“Shall I drive?” Eduard asks.

“Yeah, I don’t have a spare helmet for my motorcycle anyway.”

His eyes flash when she says motorcycle, and she smirks. She’s never met anyone who didn’t find it hot that she drives one.

Still, they pile into Eduard’s old car, which also smells like bread for some reason, and Nadzeya watches the choir leader as he drives them through town. His hair is a mess, and he doesn’t lose the flush along the way. He swallows hard every time his eyes flick to her, and she admires the line of his throat as he does before letting her eyes wander, dragging her gaze down his body and imagining she can see he’s just as aroused as she still is underneath his slacks.

If she touches herself once or twice along the way, no one but them needs to know.

They stop in front of a small house on a deserted street, the lights inside on against the gloom outside, and Eduard fumbles with his keys in an almost reassuring way—he’s still him—before opening his front door, and they fall into the warmth of his house.

Which, of course, smells like bread. Does he bake?

Nadzeya doesn’t have much time to look around before she’s being pushed back against the door, the wood cold on her back, and Eduard is on his knees before her, obviously intending to finish what he started. He doesn’t move for a few seconds, though, just glances up at her questioningly.

“Do you need written fucking permission, Mets?” she growls, and tangles her fingers in his hair again to pull him towards her.

He trails quick kisses up her thigh while he hooks his long fingers under the waistband of her skirt and pulls it down, letting it pool on the welcome mat around her heels. Nadzeya tilts his head back with one hand and looks at him sharply. He watches back as she shimmies her panties off with the other hand, although his breathing speeds up ever so slightly.

“Go the fuck ahead,” she tells him, and he does.

There’s something to be said for being eaten out by someone who works with his mouth for a living, Nadzeya thinks as she tilts her head back against the door, spreading her legs a bit.

Eduard’s tongue flicks her clit ruthlessly for a while, until her legs start shaking and he moves to nose along the inside of her thighs, undoubtedly smudging his glasses, and then he licks into her folds,  _definitely_  smudging his glasses. This repeats several times, until Nadzeya is all but whimpering and pulling on his hair feebly in attempt to get him to just finish her the fuck  _off_.

He does, finally, by closing his mouth around her clit, sucking and licking, and when all of a sudden there are long fingers sliding easily into her, crooking, she lets go of herself with a loud exhale that ends in a definite moan, her legs shaking and her eyes closing as her head  _thunks_  against the door.

Eduard keeps it up for a little too long—she has to push him away—but she can’t say she minds so much.

When he stands up, she immediately pulls him down into a searing kiss, tasting the muffled sweetness of herself on his slick lips.

He smiles when they part, looking slightly sheepish of all things. He baffles Nadzeya.

“You  _are_  beautiful,” he says.

“Oh, fuck off.” But she finds she’s smiling.

“If you come with me. Unless you want, I don’t know, a drink or something?” He runs a hand over his chin, then rubs his fingers together with the wetness he finds there, expression nearly baffled.

“Where are we fucking off to?” she just asks, and kicks off her heels and the panties hanging around them to follow him to his bedroom. He bends down and unties his shoelaces on the way, kicking his shoes off on the landing.

It’s a neat enough affair inside the bedroom, although there are curious knickknacks stacked on several shelves and a desk, souvenirs and books and CDs and—Nadzeya squints—a telescope and several star charts. Huh, nice. The sheets on his bed are messy, a knit blanket rumpled up among them, catching on the wrought iron frame. He pushes some clothes off the mattress, and Nadzeya is abruptly reminded he’s still wearing his full suit, and that won’t do.

So, after tugging her own shirt down enough that it covers her ass, she strides towards him quickly enough that he lets out a startled yelp when she pushes against him, and he sprawls on the mattress.

“What—” he stammers, squinting through his dirtied glasses.

“You’re a little overdressed, Eduard.” She leans over to him. “And by that I mean, take off your fucking clothes.”

Sitting up, he shrugs his jacket off quickly, flinging it vaguely in the direction of a chair carrying more clothes already. Nadzeya recognizes several of his terrible shirts.

She decides to give him a hand with his shirt and straddles his thighs to undo the tiny buttons and smooth the shirt off his shoulders. His chest is lean, the hair on it sparse and pale. She runs her fingers down over the expanse of skin, then back up until she can fit her hands around his jaw and kiss him. Unsurprisingly, he holds on to her thighs, hands running up to her ass and cupping the cheeks.

With one hand, she trails patterns on his chest, flicks his nipple a couple times but abandons it when it doesn’t seem to do much for him, and eventually meanders down to the edge of his slacks, which she slides her fingers over until she is cupping his cock through the fabric. He gasps from where he’s busy sucking kisses into the skin of her neck. His fingers clench on her ass.

When she continues teasing him, fondling and grinding a bit, he groans, a deep rumble in his chest, and Nadzeya smirks.

She already knows she will have a lot of fun with Eduard.

Right now, however, she can feel her own arousal starting to build rapidly again, and Eduard is tugging on the collar of her shirt trying to get to more skin, so she clambers to her feet again, huffing at the disappointed noise the man makes and admiring him sprawled out on the mattress for a few seconds. He’s certainly not the best-looking person Nadzeya has had, but something about the way he holds himself when he’s confident in what he’s doing makes him all the more appealing.

She leans over and bites her lip to keep her smile down when Eduard fumbles his slacks open of his own accord, so she can tug them down easily. He’s wearing plain black boxer-briefs underneath, the front of them damp and bulging. Nadzeya rubs her fingers over her clit roughly when arousal crashes through her. Then, she hooks them in the waistband of his underwear and tugs them down as well.

Eduard’s cock flops against his stomach, unable to hold its own weight up but definitely hard—she bites her lip as her mouth waters. He isn’t huge, but his cock is proportional to his height, with a curve upwards.

“Wait, hold up,” he says suddenly, and he rolls over to reach for his bedside drawer, pulling out a condom while Nadzeya eyes his surprisingly firm ass. His legs are generally more muscular than she expected. Maybe he bikes. She doesn’t know that much about him, really, but wants to learn.

“Can I blow you without?” she asks bluntly when he rolls back, and he blinks, cock twitching.

“I—yes, I mean, I’m clean, so…”

“Me too.”

And she leans over to take him into her mouth, hopping back on the bed and settling between his legs. His skin is velvety warm on her tongue, tasting like the muffled nothingness of cloth more than anything else. She strokes what she can’t swallow, but sometimes runs her hands over his thighs, raking through fine hair, and up over his hipbones, and cups his balls. His hands are in his own hair first, then pushing hers out of her face, pushing it all to one side like a pale blonde curtain.

Nadzeya holds him steady while she closes her lips around just the head of his cock, foreskin pushed down, and licks around him. That draws a long, breathy moan from him while he arches his back.

“ _Fuck_ , Nadzeya,” he gasps, and again when she licks a stripe up the underside of his cock. She smiles.

It’s not long before he’s gasping at her to stop, and she does, because she wants him in-fucking-side of her and he doesn’t seem like the type of guy who goes for multiple rounds—although he’s proving to be full of surprises, of course.

She tugs her own shirt over her head and flings it away, lets Eduard shuffle the both of them up until they’re lying properly on the bed, his head on the pillows and Nadzeya still between his spread legs.

He sits up and kisses her, and starts fumbling with her bra at the same moment. She lets him be for a while, amused and curious, before her arousal gets the better of her and she quickly unclasps the thing in the front and shrugs it off her shoulders.

Eduard bites his lower lip as he reaches for her with both hands, cupping her heavy breasts with those long fingers, pinching her sensitive nipples between thumbs and forefingers.

“I thought they’d be smaller,” he mumbles, and ducks his head when Nadzeya shoots him an incredulous look. “Sorry.”

“You’ve only ever seen me wearing sports bras,” she explains. “They’ll do that. Besides, I thought you’d be wearing different underwear.”

He looks up at her with eyes questioning behind smudged glasses, even as he tugs her closer and swirls his tongue around her left nipple until she squirms under the touch. He seems surprised that she reacts like that.

“Don’t tell me you don’t have terrible novelty boxers,” she says, then gasps when he sucks hard on her breast in retaliation.

“I do,” he confesses.

“Were you hopeful?” she asks, amused. “To be wearing something else today?”

He looks up at her.

“Weren’t you?”

That’s a point, she thinks, while she allows herself to be flipped to her back, spitting a strand of hair out, and waits more-or-less patiently while he rolls the condom on. She’s never been very handy with those things.

The second he’s done, however, she reaches for him, tugging him between her legs, and grasps his cock, pumping roughly. He gasps, eyes wide on her.

“Keep up, Eduard,” she tells him, and he actually does; reaches for her, pushes his fingers down on either side of her clit and eventually into her, at an awkward angle until he realizes there are easier ways to go about it.

He continues when her hand slips from his cock, pushing her back down and licking his lips eagerly when she spreads her legs. She throbs around his fingers—three now—when the memory of his mouth overcomes her.

“Eduard, just goddamn fuck me,” she hisses, and winces when he pulls his fingers out a bit too quickly.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

All the same, they shuffle close together, and Nadzeya wraps her legs around Eduard’s waist while he positions himself.

He slides into her easily. Nadzeya breathes out with the feeling of being blissfully full, of heat and movement inside her. She swipes her hair back from her face. Lifts her head to watch Eduard as he runs his hands down over her thighs, hoisting her up a little.

Finally, he looks properly disheveled, like she wanted him. Flushed all the way down to his chest, hair messy and eyes nearly wild.

Nadzeya bends her knees, tugging him over her.

“That doesn’t seem comfortable,” he tells her breathlessly.

“I’m a gymnast, Eduard.”

“So you are.” His eyes light up with the realization of what that could mean, and Nadzeya has to admit she’s intrigued by the possibilities, but right now, she’s got other things on her mind.

“Move,” she growls, and he does, pulling out slowly as he bites his lip in concentration, then looking at her as he slams back in all at once.

Nadzeya arches her back and makes a sound in the back of her throat, involuntarily pulling on him with her legs, her heels digging into his ass. Eduard groans, and repeats the movement. The muscles in his ass clench as he leans on his hands, then on his forearms while he builds towards a fast rhythm and runs his mouth over Nadzeya’s breasts, sucking a nipple between his lips and flicking it with his tongue.

“ _Fuck_!” she gasps, and fists her hands into his hair, dragging him up to mesh their mouths together.

He curls one hand around her right thigh, helping her move with him. When his cock slips out of her, he laughs sheepishly and sits up a little to rectify it. Nadzeya moves with him, smirks when he looks slightly confused, and pushes him to his back.

“Oh,” he breathes, eyes wide in anticipation and hair falling back from his sweaty forehead while Nadzeya swings a leg over his hips and grasps his cock firmly. After a few strokes, she catches Eduard’s gaze and sinks down on him.

His mattress doesn’t have any spring to it, but he thrusts up into her with all he’s got while she bounces on his length, cupping her own breasts to keep them from jumping up and down—she loves riding people, but those things fucking hurt—until he reaches for them, and then she’s free to rub herself while he plays with her nipples, sending waves of arousal through her body. Her other hand, she plants on his heaving chest, using him as leverage.

He sits up a little, though, so she slides her arm around his neck instead, and when he sits up more, her breasts press up between them, Eduard holds on to her legs once again—he’s got a thing for them, doesn’t he—and Nadzeya can feel the familiar tingle start building inside her.

“Oh, fuck, Nadzeya,” Eduard breathes, bending his head forward to bury his face between her boobs, licking the sweaty skin there all the way up to the hollow of her throat, and his glasses are pretty much useless by now, but he doesn’t seem to mind, because he gently bites down on her jaw while he stills inside her, his cock twitching. His breath is hot on her face when he groans through his orgasm, his fingers clench on her ass.

To her surprise, he starts moving again after a few seconds, making little noises in the back of his throat.

“ _Oh_ ,” she says, then leans back while his mouth finds her nipple again, and it takes only a few strokes of her own fingers until the tingle explodes into white heat. She can’t hold in the shout that erupts from her throat, can’t help raking her blunt nails down Eduard’s back, and when he abruptly pulls out of her and pushes her back to  _put his mouth on her again_ , she can’t even complain because it feels like she just keeps fucking coming, soaking his chin and the sheets.

Drumming her legs on his back, she breathes in gasps that are nearly sobs; Eduard pushes his tongue into her, then his fingers, and she has to shout again.

Well,  _that’s_  never happened before.

She pushes him away when it becomes too much, presses her thighs together before letting her legs fall down as boneless as the rest of her on his bed. She closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, Eduard is cleaning his glasses with shaky fingers, and has apparently thrown the condom away.

“What the  _hell_ , Mets,” she says, her voice raspy. “You know no one will believe me when I say you’re good in bed.”

He opens his mouth, frowns, and then laughs.

“No one needs to know,” he replies. Puts his glasses back on. They slide down his sweaty nose, and he pushes them up with one finger. “I don’t usually do this.”

“Make someone come—what, three times in the span of an hour?”

“Three—no, I mean…” He gestures vaguely, but his hand lands on her thigh and strokes small circles into the skin there.

“Have sex before the third date?”

Shrugging helplessly, he nods. Nadzeya props herself up on her elbows and regards him.

Yes, he’s a fucking nerd  _pur sang_ , but he apparently has a sense of humor about it, and he is  _great_  in bed and has a calm confidence in specific situations Nadzeya would love to see more of.

“We can go on three dates, you know,” she says. “More, even. I mean, I don’t like clubs and all, but…” She glances at the telescope on its shelf. “Stargazing?”

“I’d like that.”

“Yeah.”

She lies there for a while, the sweat cooling on her skin until it actually becomes uncomfortable.

“Would you happen to have a shower?” she asks Eduard, and he blinks as if snapping from his thoughts, although his fingers are still tracing patterns into her skin.

“Yes, of course.” He stands, shuffling self-consciously and folding his hands over his softened cock.

Nadzeya raises an eyebrow at him, climbs off the bed as well, and tugs his arms apart and around her back, leaning up to kiss him. He tastes like her, and their bodies stick together with cooled sweat. Nadzeya grimaces at it, and Eduard smiles.

“I’ll show you to the shower,” he says, and does, his hands fumbling at his sides. Nadzeya grins at the scratch marks on his back.

They don’t both fit into the shower cubicle, which doesn’t matter because Nadzeya has some terrible shower sex memories anyway, and Eduard has a shirt and some of the aforementioned novelty boxers waiting for her when she comes back out.

“ _Moomins_ , really?”

He smiles. “I will always maintain it was a gift. They’re new.”

It’s surprisingly easy to lie next to the choir leader in his bed and talk about the championship of today, to listen to him humming some songs under his breath until they both fall asleep.

* * *

On Saturday, they both wake early and have breakfast in Eduard’s light kitchen. Nadzeya’s phone is dead, but when she borrows Eduard’s charger and checks her messages, there are several from her sister and two from Angélique of all people.

The first reads, “ _so did u run off with mr mets, the outcome of a bet i have w olympe depends on it_ ”

The second, sent at midnight, reads, “ _pls tell me u didnt have sex in the sports hall i dont wanna be traumatized. but also hope u had fun, see u monday_ ”

“I’m never going to hear the end of this,” Nadzeya tells the world at large, but it’s Eduard who replies, curling his arms around her from behind and nuzzling her neck.

“And you don’t even have any of my family members in your team.”

She barks a laugh. Iryna is going to give him a shovel talk.

“Please make sure she threatens you where I can see,” she says.

“I’ll try to remember, but you need to make up for it.”

“Hmm.” She turns to him, putting her phone on the kitchen counter, and searches his face. “Deal.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he says, and leans down to brush their lips against each other. They now both smell like the bread he  _does_  actually bake, and Nadzeya surprisingly likes the domestic sort of implication of it. Maybe she’s getting old.

“I look forward to it.”


End file.
